Slashdot Mirror
Hong Kong's Octopus
Reuters is carrying an interesting story about Hong Kong's Octopus smart card system, which serves as a mass-transit fare card and is now being accepted by merchants for small purchases. A magazine cover story from last year goes more into depth. Interesting to note that the system started off anonymous, and is now being converted into a personally-trackable system.
9/11 isn't about clever terrorists -- it's about ridiculous failures in intelligence, federal law enforcement, and immigration procedures. Nothing's changed; don't expect a smartcard to foil these camel jockeys.
How appropriate, I am now in HK and I have an octopus card in my wallet!
It is a very well received device from what I experienced. It works really well in HK but I doubt that it will work as well in other countries/cities.
What makes HK unique is the high concentration of people in a "homogenous" society. Being a "special administration region" under China, efficency has a higher priority over privacy. I personally think that it is a wonderful system for HK, but not very well suited for North America.
Well, the Metro North monthly passes double as Metrocards, and when you buy one from a machine it asks if you want to put metrocard credit on it.
The Signapore goverment has a system that has been cracked wide open. Its not a major problem because if you get caught, your in jail for decades and can never get a job. The result is most of the people who have the ability to casually hack the system aren't about to even try.
Once cool thing with these (and Mondex) is that if you lose the card, someone else keeps the cash. Anyone who has ever worked in a student ID office or drivers license department can tell you how offten people lose these things.
So far no one has built a smart card that has enough grunt to do real hard crypto in a reasonable about of time while making the chip so it can't be inspected in a way to find out its secrets. We have a long way to go before someone comes up with a contactless card that can do a transaction faster than two people who are good at handling cash.
Casinos require their patrons to change cash into chips for much the same reason. Four green chips on the table just don't make the same impression that a $100 bill does. It's easier to play with the colorful markers and not realize you're losing real money. The line at the cashier to change chips back into cash is also another way to part you and your money.
Slot clubs work much the same way. Anyone who plays a lot of slots hates dealing with the mass of coins that a big win produces. Only amateurs are impressed with the shower of coins like that produced by machines in the movies. "Real" casinos (read: casinos for people who live close by and play a LOT) don't use cash at all, just a "Dave & Buster's" type card that inserts to the machine and the central computer notes your ID and keeps track of your wins (ha!) and losses.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Here in Tokyo, Japan Railways East introduced a contactless smart card called "Suica" last year. It's particularly convenient because one card can serve as both a stored value card and a commuter pass. When part of my trip uses the line for which I have a commuter pass, I swipe the card at the end of the journey and it deducts for only that portion of the journey that was not using my commuter line.
Unfortunately, this card, though good on JR, can't be used on the subways or private railways. But I hear that this may be coming.
The biggest cellphone provider here, Docomo, is set to introduce a contactless smart card chip in its new mobile phones later this year, which should be particularly interesting.
cjs
The world's most portable OS: http://www.netbsd.org.
It's true that the normal Octopus Card doesn't identify the holder as such, but the card itself has an identifying number blind-stamped on the front as well as an identifying code in the chip, which also retains the details of the last trip made. The identifying code and travel information are recorded each time the card is used; if the chip gets damaged, this information is used to reconstruct the value of the card.
o ct _2.htm
t s0 2b.html
That the card doesn't identify a traveller by name doesn't mean there isn't a privacy concern; since most people use just one Octopus Card and keep adding value to it from time to time the record of that card's use is also the record of that user's travels. I haven't heard of police taking down the details of a suspect's Octopus Card for investigation, but it's certainly a possibility.
Though Octopus has the form of a private venture, it is wholly-owned by the SAR's transport operators and indirectly controlled by the HK Government, which holds a 66 percent indirect interest in the venture. The MTR, which operates the HK subway, holds a controlling interest of 57.4 percent in Octopus and the heavy and light rail operator KRC holds 22.1 percen in it. While the bus and ferry system operators are private operations, both the MTR and the KRC are government-controlled. Government-backing and acceptance of the card by the practically all public transport operators has almost guaranteed its success. (In his interview with Reuters, Eric Tai of Octopus disingenously down-plays the HK Government's role in transport. The MTR was 100 percent government-owned at the time Octopus was established and, after a partial privatisation, remains 77 percent government-owned; the KCR is still 100 percent government-owned.) An alternative cash card for shopping alone, the Mondex Card, sponsored by HSBC, the SAR's biggest bank, failed big.
Technical details about the Octopus Card are at these links:
http://www.octopuscards.com/octopus_eng/e_what_
http://www.sony.co.jp/en/Products/felica/conten